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PROCTOR | July 2015
Will Precedents
Guide Volume 4
Access basic will precedents, letters
and notes designed for Queensland
legal practitioners with QLS’s Will
Precedents Guide – Volume 4.
• Designed for Queensland practitioners
• 19 will precedent templates
• Written in plain English
• Available in Microsoft Word
• Compatible with Windows and Mac
Regular price: $300
Discounted member price: $220
Member discount: 27%
Order this valuable
resource for your firm today!
>> qls.com.au/will-precedents-guide
Prepared by Bruce Godfrey, research officer, Queensland
Court of Appeal. These notes provide a brief overview
of each case and extended summaries can be found at
sclqld.org.au/qjudgment/summary-notes. For detailed
information, please consult the reasons for judgment.
error of law or led to a miscarriage of justice
– where the judge’s direction, when read as a
whole, explained the defence case to the jury
and instructed them, before convicting the
appellant, to be satisfied beyond reasonable
doubt that the defence hypothesis was not
open – where the judge’s impugned directions
read in context in the summing up did not
effectively tell the jury how to more readily
reason towards a verdict of guilt – where the
respondent was sentenced to life imprisonment
with parole eligibility after serving 20 years on
count 1; to 31⁄2 years’ imprisonment on count
2; and to two years’ imprisonment on count
3 – where the Attorney-General of Queensland
has appealed against the sentence on count
1 under s669A Criminal Code 1899 (Qld)
contending that it is manifestly inadequate,
in that parole eligibility should have been
postponed beyond 20 years – where the
respondent’s criminality was aggravated by his
chillingly similar past offending, his complete
lack of remorse and insight into his actions
and his poor prospects of rehabilitation – where
the sentencing judge noted the respondent’s
life sentence for murder meant that, whatever
parole eligibility date was given, he will not be
released unless the Parole Board considers
release appropriate at some time far into the
future – where this court can only interfere
with a sentence on appeal under s669A where
the sentence was so unreasonable as to
amount to an error of law – where there is no
previous instance in Queensland where the
parole eligibility date for a single murder was
postponed beyond 20 years – whether the
sentence is manifestly inadequate.
Appeal against conviction dismissed. Appeal
against sentence dismissed.
R v Thurlow [2015] QCA 89, 22 May 2015
Appeal against Conviction – where the
appellant was convicted of one count of
wounding – where the offence occurred during
an altercation between the appellant and the
complainant in the beer garden of a hotel in
which, it was alleged, the appellant struck the
complainant with a glass – where the trial judge
admitted evidence that the appellant had
declined to participate in a police interview –
where the discussion about the admissibility
of the evidence took place in the presence
of the jury – where the trial judge directed
the jury not to draw any adverse inference
from the appellant’s exercise of her right to
silence – whether the evidence was wrongly
admitted – whether the direction was sufficient
to remedy any error – where counsel for the
respondent conceded that the fact that the
appellant had declined to be interviewed was
irrelevant, and that it was desirable that argument
occurred in the absence of the jury – where
there is much to be concerned about in the
trial judge’s approach to the matter – where
it was unfortunate that the admissibility of the
evidence should have been canvassed in front
of the jury, the argument added nothing to what
they heard in any event by way of the evidence
itself and the direction – where a prosecution
witness gave evidence about the manner in
which the appellant left the venue – where the
prosecution did not suggest that the evidence
indicated consciousness of guilt – where the
trial judge gave the jury a direction on flight –
whether the evidence was sufficient to establish
an attempt at flight – whether the trial judge
erred in giving the direction – where there was
some danger that the jury would misapprehend
the effect of the evidence, and that a direction
was, therefore, required – where, however, the
appropriate direction would have been one
which told the jury that there was no evidence
that the appellant was trying to flee – where
it was an error on the part of the learned trial
judge to suggest to the jury that there was
evidence of an attempt at flight from which
they could infer guilt – where aspects of the
evidence of the complainant and other witnesses
were inconsistent with the CCTV footage of
the incident – where the CCTV footage did
not depict the glass coming into contact with
the complainant’s head – where the defence
counsel asked the trial judge to leave the
defence of accident to the jury – where the trial
judge declined to give the direction – where the
jury subsequently asked the trial judge whether
an unintentional striking would constitute unlawful
wounding – whether the trial judge erred in
declining to direct the jury on accident pursuant
to s23(1)(a) of the Criminal Code – where the
jury’s question was not unfounded – where it
was for them to decide whether it accepted
the witnesses’ evidence, and what they made
of the appellant’s apparent admission, and
the CCTV footage was significant – where
that footage showed that there was a flurry of
movement by the complainant, which raised
the possibility of the glass coming into contact
with her head by some movement of the
appellant which was not intentional – where
the fact that the jury at least at one stage of its
deliberations contemplated the possibility that
there had been an unintentional striking with the
glass in the course of the scuffle makes it plain
that there was a live issue as to whether the
act of hitting Ms Watson with a glass was one
which occurred independently of the exercise
of the appellant’s will, on which instruction was
required – where the trial judge’s redirection
went some of the way towards what was
necessary, but was, as counsel for the
respondent conceded, inadequate – where it
did not tell the jury that if the Crown had not
excluded accident within the meaning of s23(1)
(a) as a reasonable possibility, they should acquit.
Appeal allowed. Set aside the conviction and
order a retrial.
On appeal
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